
Book -^Ji2Ur 

CoipglttN°__ 

COPVRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE VIVINE ENCHANTMENT 



THE "DIVINE ^ 
ENCHANTMENT 



B /iDp6ttcal poem 



'BY 



^. G. iNiEIHARDT 




'JAMES r. WHITE & CO, 

mo 



I to-i4^^ 



5535 



TWO COPIES HECEIVKO, 

Library of CoBgrtl% 
Office ef tbf 



m 1 3 1900 

hegisttr of Copyrlglilat ^ 



Copyright, 1900, 
By James T. A¥hite & Company. 



(^All rights reserved.') 



PREFATORY* 



Many years before our era there reigned over 
the province of Madura, in India, a tyrant, Kansa. 
During his reign there lived in an obscure village 
of the realm a maiden of the race of Yadu, named 
Devanaguy, who, so the ancient prophets sang, 
should bear Christna, the incarnation of Vishnu, 
destined to establish temporal and spiritual empire 
^ over all the world. This prophecy wrought so much 

^^ upon the king's fear and jealousy, that he ordered 

d the virgin Devanaguy to be safely locked in his 

prison, and guarded most vigilantly, hoping that 
by cutting ofif in this way all possible intercourse 
with men, he might thwart the divine plan and the 
prophets. But during her incarceration the spirit 
of Vishnu appeared and overshadowed her, whereat 
the virgin conceived. During the term of her gesta- 
tion Devanaguy was transported by a continual, 
ecstatic dream. Her spirit, freed from her body, 
ran through every pulse of passion, felt the dark 
terrors of the Void, and wantoned in the unwinged 
blue; thus giving to the unborn child, inherently, 
that for which the sages vainly sought. The follow- 
ing rhapsody is the dream in miniature. 

J. G. Neihardt. 
1899. 

5 



CONTENTS. 



I. — Prelude, 9 

[I. — Enchantment, 10 

III. — Interlude, 19 

IV. — Birth of Brahm, 21 

V. — Procreation, .24 

VI. — Preservation, 32 

VII. — Dissolution, 36 

VIII.— Nirvana, 41 

IX. — Disenchantment, . . . . . -43 
X. — Postlude, 45 



TERMS IN THE FOLLOWING WORK. 

AjAKAVA — The bow used by Siva, the destroyer, in bring- 
ing about the dissolution of Cosmos. 

Amrita — The beverage of the Hindoo gods, corresponding 
to the Grecian nectar. 

Assouras, Nagas, &c. — Names of the apostate angels, or 
demons in the realms of Kala. 

Brahma — First of the Hindoo trinity; the Creator. 

Christna — An incarnation of Vishnu, and one of the 
saviours of the world. 

Cali-Youga — The name of the age in which Christna was 
born. 

Indra — The god of the clear sky. 

Jeseus — The name applied to Christna, and correspond- 
ing to Isis, Jesus, Zeus, &c. 

Kala — The name of Siva in his capacity as death. 

Nirvana — Meaning "blown out," that is, the universal 
calm of death. 

Narada — An ancient Hindoo prophet. 

Cm — The mystic word, significant of infinite power. 

Rackchasos — The Hindoo demons. 

SuRYA — The Hindoo sun god. 

Sansara — The world hung, as it were, upon the apostate 
spirits as punishment for their fall. 

Siva — The third of the Hindoo trinity, or Destroyer. 

Trimourti — The Hindoo trinity. 

Vishnu — Second of the Hindoo trinity. Preserver. 

Yama — The Hindoo god of death. 

8 



tbc Dtt^ine encDantmcnt 



PRELUDE. 

"In Cali-Youga shall a virgin bear 

The Incarnate Essence of the mighty Soul, 

Who comes to bid the weak and lowly live. 

Oh, He shall come Hke sun at dead of night. 

And at His first low wail the sacred stream 

Shall thrill with rapture even to its source, 

And bound as does a pregnant woman's heart 

At the first rapture of the springing life. 

Strange sounds shall hurtle through the dark abyss. 

Bidding Rackchasos tremble in their dens; 

Sweet strains shall charm the holy hermit's ears, 

And he shall praise the saviour in his wilds; 

The wondering winds shall surfeit with perfume 

And feel the rapture of his tender law." 

So sang Narada in the ancient time, 

And now fulfilment hovered sweetly near. 



tbe Divine Ettchantmciit 



11. 

ENCHANTMENT. 

O Evening, dusky daughter of the Day, 

Multiloquent in silence, passioned, calm; 

Thou seemest to me a lovely Yadu maid, 

Whose cheek though browned, yet blushes with the pulse 

Of love and summer; while a languid soul 

Dreams in the dark, deep eyes, that placid, hint 

Of all the tropic passion they can flash 

When love hath charmed them or when hate hath stirred. 

Close, close, thou creepest to the eager earth. 

That fondly quivers with a conscious thrill; 

Thy amorous breath is mingled with its breath; 

Thy dusky breast is throbbing on its own; 

Thy kiss, prolonged, clings drowsily the while 

But cannot satiate, till sweetly lulled, 

A hemisphere swoons to oblivion 

Enwound in thy voluptuous embrace! 

The drowsy maidens in the palmy groves 

Forgot the song of love that slept on lip, 

And there drooped fingers lay mid sitar's strings. 

Yet, hidden in the leaves, the bulbul woke 

In long ecstatic bursts of melody; 

And when the song into an echo sank, 

The deep, sonorous, moaning of the trees 

Swelled like a fettered giant's hopeless sigh. 

Till solaced by the ever-rising song. 

It murmurous crept beneath the chanted spell. 



tbe Divine Enchantment 

Over Madura's towers fell the shade 
Of evening with its influence of calm; 
Into a tower cell the night charm crept, 
Crept o'er a maiden knelt in holy prayer; 
Lowly she moaned and in her moaning prayed; 
"Truth, Wisdom, endless Brahm, 
Source of all bliss, immortal, shining forth, 
Peaceful, benignant, secondless, 
O listen to a humble maiden's prayer. 
Make thou me free, though walls are round about; 
Rule thou my soul, though tyrants sway my form; 
Bind my soul to thee as my body's bound; 
Breathe o'er me with thy breath of deathless calm, 
Om, peace, peace, peace." 

Soft sleep, in answer to her prayer, crept 
Into her sorrowed pulses, and she slept; 
Night charmed the blood in every bounding vein, 
That crept with drowsy music to her brain. 
And all the pleasure that her youth would feel 
Dream touched with magic and it lingered real. 

Meanwhile a tremor wakened in the Vast; 

The worlds grew calm, nor sputtered more the suns; 

The earth was shrouded in a pulseless dream. 

The birds were voiceless in the silent trees; 

The streams forgot their laughter 'mid the rocks 

And in their depths the fishes fell asleep; 

The winds stood still, and languished in the breath 

Of drooping flowers; all sense expectant faltered. 

But suddenly a storm of melody 

Burst from the brooding mystery of silence! 

All that exists took up a second life; 

The worlds, the suns whirled on in rhythmic hope; 

The earth, the trees, the birds, the sparkling streams 



tbe Dioine encbantment 

Quivered with life; then through the music swelled 
A voice more lovely than the strains it stilled, 

"O world, O wayward children, now I come; 
O poor night dwellers, hope, for dawns the day, 
Chaste Devanaguy bears thee life and light." 

Then o'er the sleeping maiden crept a shade, 

A shadow brooding with a conscious power; 

Not as the darkness of the depth of night, 

But radiant, a mist of starry sheen. 

It kissed her breast, that swelled with double breath; 

Infused a sweet hope in the sluggish veins, 

That worked and sang and charmed; and 'round her form 

With warm embrace, clung like celestial robe. 

Love of a thousand mothers lulled her brain, 

And in her blood a gentle whisper crept. 

That said with soothing sweetness, "Thou art blest; 

Lo! Devanaguy, at thy virgin heart 

The world's high promise quickens into life; 

For Vishnu, blest Preserver of the worlds, 

Hath entered thee, nor boasts a prouder throne; 

Tho' he may glimmer in the summer cloud, 

All radiant with ineffable desires; 

Tho' he may blossom in the banyan boughs, 

Where sing the drowsy night-birds to their loves; 

Tho' he may flash a mighty, regal thought 

In mystic minds of sages in their dreams, 

He boasts no prouder dwelling; and above. 

When earth is once again reclaimed from night. 

He'll glance a brighter glory from his eye, 

A prouder voice shall well from out his mouth. 

And he shall say, 'Lo, Devanaguy, she, 

The spotless virgin of a sinful world 

Once bore me.' 

12 



tDe Bit^inc encbantmcnt 

Dream then sweetly of thy child; 
The passioned heaving of thy maiden breast, 
Tho' tender as the fragrant breath of flowers, 
More mighty is than ocean's boundless surge." 

Then crept a dream through every throbbing pulse: 
Not such a dream as mortal mothers love, 
When sweetly thinking how the child shall smile 
And prattle when the smile is quick returned; 
Not such a dream as thrills a mother's soul. 
When thinking of the sweet weight at her breasts; 
But infinite her dream; she felt she bore 
The incarnate passion of the dashing shower. 
The unconsoled longing of the sea, 
The amorous spirit of the burning sun, 
The murmurous music of the sacred stream! 

A tinkling music wakened in her ears, 

As if the rivulets of Himalay 

Had struck their lotus harps in joyous song, 

Fraught with the boast of harvests they had dewed 

And nurtured into gold; her spirit fled. 

Like eager echo in the wake of sound 

Down the charmed pathway of that tinkling song, 

Till it began to swell to graver note. 

As when the sacred stream with hundred mouths 

Cries forth its passion to the listening deep. 

Then, murmurous, dreams agam its natal dreams. 

She felt the longing arms of Ocean old 

Twine round her spirit in an amorous clasp, 

And through her thrilled his passion, old as earth, 

Yet pure and deep as of the blooming youth. 

Then o'er the heaving bosom of the sea 

A dream-fraught zephyr crept from central climes 

13 



tbc Dipinc enchantment 

Where Indra girdles earth with radiant smile: 
Crept lover-like, with fragrance in its breath, 
And soothing tales of summer in its voice, 
And if the deep bore any frown of care, 
'Twas softened with a soporific touch 
And all was placid, unresisting there. 

Into the ocean crept the zephyr's plea, 

Into the zephyr rose the sea's response. 

And their souls met in sweet satiety. 

Thrilled with its draught of love, the zephyr swelled 

And burst into the fury of a gale; 

And like a soul, when first it knows itself 

Is infinite and deathless, sought the blue. 

Borne on the longing of its misty wings. 

Up, up she soared, the spirit of the cloud, 
Fraught with the tender hope of countless lives, 
The lullaby that woos the buds to bloom. 
And holy chant that nerves the pregnant flower. 
That it e'en gives its bloom, yea life for seed! 

Then in the glances of the smiling morn 
She blushed to crimson, and her humid soul 
Warmed into love and quivered with desire. 

Then the earth waxed faint and fainter in the covering of 

haze. 
And the hills and valleys wavered in a strange, uncertain 

maze; 
Soon a bluster and a rush broke the ill-forboding hush, 
And the passions of the heavens tore the earth's dream 

with their gush; 

Then down, down, down, on the dry, insatiate brown 
Of the hillsides and the meadows, swept the flood from 
heaven's frown; 

14 



tlK Divine eticbantnicnt 

Spirits, bright and flashing, fleet, spurned the air with 
silver feet, 

With a kind of mocking laughter, yet a melody complete; 

In a wild, uproarious mirth, dashed themselves upon the 
earth. 

That it felt a thrill of passion quiver round its verdant 
girth: 

And the erstwhile whimpering gale, slipt away without a 
wail. 

Drowsy grown with draught of beauty from their heaven- 
conjured tale; 

There was hope in every bud and warm resolve in every 
seed; 

Rush of color to the blossom, pride triumphant in the 
weed: 

Then the rivulets cried gladly with a wild, ecstatic bound, 

And the ocean fondly quivered with a consciousness pro- 
found; 

And the seas and earth and heavens throbbed together 
Hke a brain^ 

With a blessing to the warm, benignant passion of the 
rain! 

Then died the vision with the ceasing shower; 
A wondrous fragrance wrapt her round about, 
And as the spirit of a lowly flower. 
She felt the speechless thrill of bursting buds. 
When weeping Monsoon woos the land with tears; 
She felt the lust of the unfolding bloom, 
The universal dreaming of the seed. 
That dries the petal in its hot embrace! 

Then in her dream night crept upon the world; 

She slept a longing in a bulbul's heart, 

That watched and listened to the brooding night; 

15 



tf)e Dfoine €ncbjintiiie»t 

She saw afar within the dark concave 

The jewel eyes of devas pierce the gloom; 

But lo! with face that paled the stars, arose 

The argent pride of dusky hemispheres, 

Beneath whose silver kisses, heaved with love 

The deep, true breast of Ocean, till its tremor 

Crept to the distant shores where lotus flowers, 

Lapt in a drowsy fragrance, felt the thrill. 

And cast a sopor o'er the earth and air; 

Then felt she how the night-bird's heart can throb, 

When seeking music for a vital song: 

She felt the blood-warmth and the hot desires. 

Till in one long, wild ecstacy of notes 

Her spirit poured forth glowing on the breeze, 

That fell to calm; and down the forest shades 

She fled a dying symphony, that dim, 

And dimmer quivered in the moonlit air. 

Till but a fragrant memory was left 

That e'en itself soon perished in the bloom. 

Then felt she what it is to live, yet die; 

To sweetly languish like a sound away, 

To fade like fragrance from a fitful gale, 

And perish? Ah, within her quivered yet 

A thrill undying, for if life be life. 

It cannot die, but boundless as the Void, 

And strangely endless as the circled years, 

Must throb forever through the coarser world. 

The world of matter, that it form, destroy. 

Shoot up in trees, breathe fragrant in the flower, 

Yea, be a fancy in a sage's brain! 

Then knew she first the deathlessness of life; 
How infinite the beating of a pulse; 
Far through the realms of space her spirit spread, 

i6 



Zht Divine Gncbantment 

Beyond the limit where poor finitude 
Fades in its boasts, and grows itself a part 
Of one immutable, harmonious throb! 

Then broke the glory of an eveless day; 

Then shone the brilliance of a boundless truth: 

She saw the worlds swing to a choral chant, 

Around the centre of a common will; 

And each an atom in a mighty brain, 

Through which melodious consciousness did flash, 

To which the musing of an earthly seer 

Were dreamless sleep: here felt the soul no wish 

For fabled golden city jewel-decked. 

Where mild-eyed Indolence awakes the harp; 

The ever-widening, vast, cerulean dome, 

With ever-rising nave, where systems flash 

In fret-work intricate, is fane enough 

For thee, O Soul of all things. Life of all; 

The sympathetic worlds are harp enough 

Through which thou canst thy melodies outpour; 

The roaring suns thy holy altars burn, 

Tho' not with death, to glut a fabled wrath, 

Nor blood, to paint withal a nightmare's hate! 

Speech broke unprompted from the dreamer's lips: 

*'0 varied power, sightless architect. 

We find thee drowsy at the poppy's heart. 

We find thee wakeful in the laughing child; 

We hate thee, hating in the reptile's eye, 

We love thee, loving in the maiden's blush; 

We breathe thy breath, and love thee witlessly; 

We glow with thee through every crimson vein; 

Sandaled with consciousness thou treadest the dim 

And mystic labyrinth of subtle brain. 

And passion blows in flowers beneath thy charm 

17 



tint Divine enclMittnent 



And thrill of footfall; and betimes thou comest 

Clad in the sable of the thunder cloud 

And through the veins Greatest liquid storm; 

And 'God' we call thee, but thou speakest not 

Tho' faith grow cold upon the lips of men. 

And still we falter for the dumb to speak. 

And petulant, pine into cynic's doubts, 

While all about us fragrance breathes a dream, 

And nearby doth the streamlet improvise! 

O thou who art the living of the world. 

Unveil to me the face of the true sun, 

Now hidden by a ray of golden light." 

Whereat, upon her burst a deluge vast 
Of luminous fury, as upon the fiends 
Of nether night within the blind abyss, 
Broke the first dawning of the myriad suns! 

Upon the flood the Spirit of the Deeps 
Shone like a sun; star-shod it strode and vast, 
Crowned with a thousand rays; Essential Day, 
The positive of being, Light and Truth, 
Whose name the gods but utter to revere! 

And soon from out 'the brilliance sprang anew 
What should be voice, for it was eloquent 
Beyond all speaking; yet it rather seemed 
A new-born element, that steeped the soul 
In profound knowledge, suited unto it 
As ear and eye are formed for sound and light: 
And so flowed forth the mystic, lucent words 
Unto the silent question of her soul. 



i8 



Cbc DIviac enchantment 



III. 

INTERLUDE. 

As soars the cliff above the dusky vale 
And laves its summit in the eastern glow; 
Respeaking faintly some far song or wail 
Unto itself, and to the mist below; 
Thus would I soar and meet the Morning so, 
And thus, though stone-like, echo a far cry; 
More kindred to the dusk that clings below 
Than to the glory of the Morn, thus I 
Revive a fainting voice, where many echoes die. 

The perfume of the lotus dies away 

And sunflowers smile their broad, plebeian smile; 

No bulbul steals my willing sense to-day. 

But on the fence the blackbird brawls the while; 

The world moves conscious of the jealous dial; 

The sun drags senseless, where once Surya sprang; 

And so I speak with self-condemning smile 

In heavy words, that once, light-winged, sang 

And twang a rusty string, where once a lyre rang! 

Those brain-flowers subtle Fancy rears to bloom, 

Yet rarely blow in beauty on the lip; 

Unchilled by death and fearless of the tomb, 

Tho' sable Kala, frowning darkly, dip 

His shafts in liquid flame Raskchasos sip. 

These blooms I plant in more unkindly sod; 

Yet doth a pigmy scarce presume to skip 

Along the Blue; nor with Earth's metal shod, 

Essay to take the charmed, bright footprints of a God! 

19 



tbe Divine Gncbantmcnt 

Succeeding ages lower drag the skies, 

And heavens dwindle as the seasons wane; 

In vain we lift to thee, O Brahm, our eyes; 

And hosts of worn-out Gods are sought in vain: 

Jehovah toils to break Trimourti's reign; 

(Wert thou eternal I would call to thee) 

O Arbiter of orbits, joy and pain, 

Who art the one unfathomed, restless sea, 

O Nameless Source, now breathe a lotus charm on me! 



20 



the Divine enchantment 



IV. 

BIRTH OF BRAHM. 

Broad Chaos slept; all stillness, blind, dumb stillness^ 

E'en such a tremor as within the mind 

Wakes troubled dream, upon the drowsy ear 

Of vast Tranquility had roared a storm, 

And shaken Space from its cold sleep to wake 

In feverish orbits, zones of burning life! 

In pulseless dissolution slumbered on 
The embryon elements; and the throneless Vast 
Was needless of a king, who had been realmless. 
Yet through the murky silence restless crept 
The Principle of Being; (in whose throes, 
Hopes, fears and all the future Cosmos' throbs 
Yet dumbly struggled 'gainst their latency) 
The Cause of cause, retreating unto cause 
In tireless succession through the night; 
Dumb spirit, conjured of Attraction warm 
'Twixt molecules chaotic; soul of storm; 
The brooding Spirit in the calm; the heat 
Of genial suns; the comet's hissing hate; 
And vitalizing quiver of the pulse. 

Unheeded swept the ages o'er the deep 
With uncorrosive haste: for fleeting Time, 
The potent pulse of e'er evolving change. 
By man alone in his finite conceit 
And vanity of being, is bid stay 
Lest it should lull the momentary itch 
He hoards within his pulses; Ages rolled 
Their empty circles; and meanwhile the Deeps 



tbe Divine enchantment 

Fervescent by attraction of their parts, 

Were wild in ferment; and their atoms dumb 

Grew plastic 'neath the Spirit's thoughtless will 

And waxing sentient, bodied forth a God, 

Huge Demiurge, who reveled in the sway 

Of primal consciousness, the paradox 

Of erstwhile Night and Chaos with her aeons! 

And thus awaking from insentient sleep 

Unto a dazzling realm of knowing, He, 

The master of the meaning of the spell 

Of "I am I" that baffles circumspection, 

Marveled at all; and as a babe might laugh 

To hear the rattle of his toy, new-bought. 

He was ecstatic with the tingling thrill 

And thoughtful quiver of each nerve; his pulse 

Woke tense vibrations in his awful brain, 

And each concordant unto each, they swayed 

His being unto longings that were sounds; 

And somewhat thus the crescent God might muse: — 

"Being? 

Form? 

Aware of being? 

To know of form? 

And what knows? 

And where is that which knows? 

Can it be that which never was before 

That feels and knows? It is not that, that is not. 

For that which knows was not a short while past! 

Ah! 'tmay be these strange beings (gazing at hands) get 

thee near! 
Aha, thou comest when the Something wills, 
Perhaps the Something's minion, not the Something, 
And these (gazing at body and limbs) I wish to know thee: 
ho! they move; 



tbe Divine €ttcl)antmcnf 

They move when Something wishes that they move; 

Then these and those are minions, not the Something! 

It seems naught is beside just these and those 

And that which feeleth, knoweth, seeth; strange! 

Methinks the Something dwelleth in myself, 

So near akin we be in what we wish 

So near akin it must be same as I. 

And then I am; but was not some while past? 

And can aught be that was not? What strange fun! 

(laughs) 
Hark! whence those beings that rushed through my brain 
And shrieked so gaily? Nothing? then 'twas I. 

"Ah, this is marvelous; alas, alone? 
Am I alone, who feels, thinks, knows, all these, 
And none to serve me whom I found so regal? 
There shall be servitors, by that weird name 
I feel within me like a spell; I swear 
There shall be servitors; ho, sluggish shades 
Awake, and let me hear thee raise thy sounds 
To praise me! Wake! or I shall speak the name 
That slumbers in my pulses, but shall lash 
Thy sluggish stupor into wakefulness, 
That sleeps not through eternities of pain! 
Wake, by the name of OM, I bid thee wake, 
And praise me!" 

Thus spoke the God, and Distance, shuddering heard; 
And Height and Depth of darkness heard and groaned: 
Till with one mighty impulse rose the din 
Of wild awakening, and the Vast broke forth 
In one deep thunder that shall never die, 
But be the menace of the groaning spheres. 
Till Ajakava free them; and that cry. 
Burned with the uttered syllables, 
"HAIL BRAHM!" 



C1)e DiPine Encbanttncttt 



V. 

PROCREATION. 

Divine Unrest, thou art the God eterne; 
Thy fevered dream is being's only stay; 
Disordered space awakens when you yearn, 
And night glows ruddy into perfect day: 
Thou art the spirit of each sun's swift ray; 
Along the trackless Vast thy moan hath dwelt, 
And silver orbits paved the stars' dark way: 
Where'er thy dream hath rankled. Void hath felt 
Her icy blood bound warm and into being melt! 

Upon a time, Brahm discontented grew 

With excess of contentment; for in vain 

Time o'er his cloudless contemplation flew, 

Nor stirred the tranquil summer of his brain; 

He longed for storm, commotion, blight or bain 

Or aught that might alleviate a mind 

Now satiate with peace; 'Twere pleasing pain, 

That might for him a new existence find; 

But weary grew the God, and slumbered as he pined. 

Like drowsy moments flew the ages fleet. 
With dreary monotone of endless yearning; 
His thought was glowing with a fevered heat, 
He dreamed the Void,, like his own mind, was burning, 
And writhing, hissing, in vast circles turning; 
Desire swept throughout him like a storm. 
And soon in ecstacy he was discerning 
From his own warmth. Infinity wax warm; 
With sympathetic pulse to vibrate into form! 

24 



tl)e Divine encbantmcnt 

A mystic spirit from his vision crept 

And over Chaos lover-like it hung, 

That, forthwith humbled in its fury, slept 

And murmured fondly as the spirit sung 

A song unlike the trilling of a tongue, 

But harmony ineffable, divine, 

That, loathing death, still unto being clung; 

And Force and Matter, wedded, ceased to pine. 

But slept, lulled by the bliss of amorous entwine. 

Transcendent is the love that mortals know, 
When two fond dreamers swoon in soft caress; 
Adrift upon their dalliant passions flow, 
Like birds that float on zephyr's happiness; 
For their's is ravishment than gods' scarce less; 
Their pulse shall quiver through a lengthened line; 
Creation's raptured touch they each possess. 
Which each doth worship at the other's shrine: 
She is a Goddess chaste, and he a God divine: 

But such is shadow of a taintless sun: 
Warm-veined grew Chaos with the potent kiss; 
Throughout her vastness heated storm did run, 
Whose uncurbed lightning scathed with many a hiss, 
Arousing Night in every vein, to bliss 
And dreams of morning, dawning bold and fair; 
Awaking life dispelled her drowsiness; 
Such love had not been and it shall be ne'er, 
As gave the ages wings above this primal pair! 

Not the soft-curtained love of nuptial bed, 
That yields the blushing maid a flitting night; 
But of the tigress in the jungle bred, 
Submitting fiercely to the lustful fight: 
Without the nuptial torches' langorous light; 

25 



tbc Dipiite €nc^^nttncnt 

But 'round them stealthy, dreamful Silence drew 
The curtains of unbounded darkness tight; 
And each in madness to the other flew. 
With seething, flaming lust in one hot fury grew! 

E'en now upon thy orb of shade and mist, 

Where man, hysteric, grumbles for an hour; 

All that hath made him able to exist. 

All that hath wreathed his care-expelling bower, 

All that hath warmed his veins with pride or power, 

Is an inherent memory, still warm. 

Bursting within the brain like scented flower, 

Of that first thrill, when formless breathed to form. 

And zephyr-like it croons of when it flashed, a storm! 

Deep in the womb of Chaos grew the dream, 

As thought builds image in the toiling brain; 

The unborn glory of each stellar beam. 

The wrath of tempest, mercy of the rain. 

The worlds, the depths, in one, unbounded pain. 

Groaned, writhing to their birth; and then at last. 

Fired by inactivity's disdain. 

Her progeny the pregnant Chaos cast 

Forth with a deathless wail, and died, her birth-pangs past! 

O, martyred mother, Deity maternal, 

Who gavest the life-pulse to all things that be; 

Thy heavenly offspring in their march diurnal. 

Chant one grand requiem, swelling e'er to thee; 

The sonorous sadness of the wailing sea 

Forgets thee not; the night-bird knows thy wail. 

And pours its tremulous infelicity 

With the dull note of the as mournful gale, 

A prayerful, cadent sob, and a most touching tale; 

26 



tU Dipine encbantmcnt 

As if when thou didst give the magic fire, 
That heats the lightning, and the sage's thought, 
Pathetic prescience of thy doom, so dire, 
Like tuneless string in lyre, darkly wrought 
A minor chord, half beautiful, that naught 
Could charm to silence; O, that thou couldst deign 
To speak, but thou art silent, yet has taught. 
Innately, martyrs how to smile in pain. 
For thou didst fade in death, that Life might deathless 
reign ! 

Forth in a flood of light the new-born fly. 

Loud, regal suns, and moons, subdued and meek; 

The comet, wild misanthrope of the sky, 

Seeming naught but forgetfulness to seek: 

Appointed paths the sturdy give the weak; 

The sun is law unto the satellite; 

And here and there an isolated clique 

Of independent stars refresh the night, 

And all the Boundless throbs with new-developed light! 

And lo! the Cosmos breathed a living whole: 

Suns 'rose on darkened worlds; clouds formed and flashed; 

Storm swept like pulse of madness through a soul 

And broke in tender tears; waves foamed and dashed 

On barren shores, that trembled, half abashed 

At the sun's kisses and the Ocean's thrill, 

And with desire warmed; then through them flashed 

A pregnant promise, till each dale and hill 

Fed at its beating breast the offspring of high Will! 

And all was lovely: Day was fair to see; 

Night had her opiate charm, her lovely eyes; 

And slumber fell with sweet felicity 

Of unbound dreams down from the mystic skies: 

27 



tbc Divine encbantment 

But in his dream Brahm wept and shook with sighs 

For something lov'lier; restless did he pine; 

But lo! from his unrest he saw arise 

A thing that laughed, wept, loved in one sun's shine, 

Strange being wrought of earth, yet part of him, divine! 

And there he stood within his natal vale, 
And cried about him, but the fields said naught; 
A varied music trembled in the gale 
And oft repeated what he vainly sought; 
The flower looked up with explanation fraught, 
And little heeded was its speechless worth; 
But breaking idols, lately fondly wrought. 
With all his gladness, sadness, sank to earth, 
Phenomenon divine of madness and of mirth! 

Wild with the hot ephemera, called life; 

Fierce in the clutches of a useless woe; 

With eyes that saw not whence the clouds of strife. 

And desperately deeming he could do 

Naught but to die; 'twere pardonably so, 

That he, half god, should menial be, and fawn. 

Wresting from silence a most wordy flow 

Of promise of some land where good have gone, 

And thus his sunless skies envermeil with false dawn! 

And thou. Oblivion, from thy sable isle, 

Speak of thy wealth in dumb deific shades; 

All-conquering Theomachist, why smile 

When man's cold fancy leaves his God that fades? 

Gods on thy hills, and gods within thy glades, 

Yet still art thou insatiate, and while, 

Man still shall ply this paradox of trades, 

Theogony, thou shalt by thy swift guile 

Receive his handiwork, and him with changeless smile! 

28 



the Dipinc EncDantmcnt 

But e'er behind his rows of fashioned gods, = 

His rude conceptions, rudelier put in clay; 

Insensible unto his prayers and nods, 

A broader being throbs through night and day; 

And they are truest devotees who say, 

"Where'er the Principle of Being warms, 

Man, beast, the flower, the tree, or what you may, 

All things, my fellows, though in varied forms, 

Nor can I boast a pulse more god-like, than the storm's!" 

And more than merely fondly may we deem 

The whole Vast conscious with a thought unknown; 

Haunting the systems, as hugh brain's dream, 

Out of the planets' fixed relation grown; 

Binding the orbs in many a conjuring zone 

Of weird illusion, which could we forego 

And that all-potent thought be felt and known, 

Would then not through our minds omniscience flow, 

And we that Being learn, to which all gods are low? 

But wrapt in cloud, our dreams are black with night; 

Life seems a tale too tedious to be heard 

Unto its anti-climax; like the flight 

Of darkness' sable, silence-pinioned bird, 

Our thought flits through wild ruins, weirdly stirred 

By its dark, retrospective flight alone; 

The cloud-born Present can not speak a word 

Of promise; the dead Past is Ruin's own; 

And so the earth is wrapt in one unending moan; 

Until it seems as though the fevered Vast, 
Like mortal dreamer, brooding fondly long; 
Swept down the current of his musing, fast, 
Waxing in heat, and swelling fiercely strong, 
Has lost the thread of its once joyous song, 

29 



C1)C Divine encbantment 

To drone discordant, melancholy strains; 
And darkly drifting into murky wrong, 
Hath earth o'erstrewn with Doubt's contending fanes, 
Till dream hath dreamer scourged, and bound with galling 
chains! 

But when man grew from chance-creating sleep, 

A jealous gift, unconsciously let fall, 

Slight as a dewdrop in the mighty deep. 

Hath all but freed him from Brahm's mystic thrall 

And weird enchantment; and beyond recall, 

That gift shall make him deathless, for star-shod, 

The Vast shall hold no tale for him at all; 

But Gods from heavens shall tumble at his nod. 

And he shall leap from clay and truly soar, a God! 

Thou art that gift, O Reason, soul of power, 
Thou alcahest of earth's illusive dreams; 
'Twas in thy ill-timed, thy incipient hour. 
The many gods arose amid their schemes, 
Erratic offspring born of drowsy dreams; 
But thou shalt with omnipotence imbue 
This earth-child, till he be whate'er he deems; 
And bidding ye, Celestial Shades, adieu, 
Shall mount those empty thrones he fondly wrought for 
you! 

But still he grovels, and the dupe is still. 

Of midnight moralists who prate of light; 

Deeming it holy to subdue his will 

And brook the chainless spirit in its flight; 

Hoping for day, yet living in the night. 

When nearby doth an eveless, vast day burn; 

Nor with horizon to retard the sight 

With circumscribing glitter; let him turn. 

And drink immortal rays, e'er eye, is dust in urn! 

30 



tbe Divine enchantment 

Ephemeron, thou dweller in a cloud, 

Well mayest thou cry, unanswered through the storm, 

"Will all my breath be stifled with the shroud, 

Or shall my pulse bound ever, nor less warm; 

Or do I dwell in, and thereto conform, 

The dream of some great consciousness, nor deem 

Myself, as I am, but a conjured form 

Of transcendental Fancy; do I seem. 

Or be, and all I see conception's sensuous dream? 

"Still Brahma's dream, in ever-widening curves. 

Chants through the systems with creating thrill; 

But hath the dreamer wakened, or still serves 

He blindly that somnific, dubious will. 

That vexes him with darkness, and doth fill 

His mind, which is the universe, with storm; 

And shall we, conscious shadows, flit until 

He wake to find his dream alone was warm? 

O, Sun of Truth, burst forth, and dissipate the storm!" 



31 



the Divine encbantment 



VI. 

PRESERVATION. 

In heaven's high portals, where glories eterne 

With myriad-times earth's solar sparklings burn, 

Sat Vishnu; the stars in their shame fled away 

Far into the shades of the realm without day. 

No morning breaks here with its wakening smile; 

No evening fades here, casting dark dreams the while; 

For Vishnu, the mighty, bears day in his eye, 

And, scanning his kingdom, illumines the sky; 

'Tis Vishnu that smiles, and we revel in light; 

'Tis Vishnu that frowns, and we grovel in night! 

In the portals he sat, and his task was a dream, 

That nurtured his soul, like a lotus-born stream; 

He sat and he dreamed 'till his dreams in their glow 

Had circled the worlds and the darkness below; 

Like a talisman sped o'er the living and dead, 

And lingered with love where his mercy had fled. 

Then, burning with rapture, he woke from his vision, 

And echoed his voice through the temples elysian: 

"Ho! devas of heaven, awake from your dreams. 

And hither ye sprites, dew-besprent from your streams, 

Let all of the hills, and each lotus-strewn dale, 

Be charmed from the spell of its indolent tale; 

Quaflf slumberous amrita, immortals be gay, 

I go on a glorious journey to-day! 

Now startles the sun '^neath the slumbering earth, 

Soon the golden Twilight to the Day shall give birth; 

But I hasten away, ere the break of the day, 

Strewing dream-laden seeds as I speed on my way 

To the molten-gold den of the struggling Day, 

32 



tbe Divine encbanttnent 

Where I'll bind him forthwith by his long, flaming hair, 
Before he can waken the world to its care; 
Then a dream shall unveil until mortals their fears, 
And Illusion shall cast down the sceptre of years; 
Then waking, this dream in their lives bright shall live, 
Presaging the calm that Nirvana can give; 
Shall lessen the weight of Sansara, and lo, 
The Future shall whisper wherever they go!" 

He spoke, nay, he sang, and his song was his deed; 

Then, grasping from off a huge lotus its seed 

Sprang upon a broad leaf of the plant, and away 

Sped off toward the den of the wakening Day. 

Heaven's light soon was past, and the shades of the world 

Now around like the wings of a hug€ bird were furled; 

And closing his eyes, lest the shadows should fail, 

He pinioned his flight over hilltop and dale: 

Over ocean he sped, and the lotus-charm bore 

Surcease to its unrest and silenced its roar; 

Over rivers he flew, and quick dropping their glee. 

They lost all their dreams and their hopes of the sea; 

And moveless they stood, yet the ripple was left, 

Nor gone was the eddy by jutting rock cleft; 

Each seemed but a river from some artist's brush 

Or stream of a dream in a magical hush. 

He flew o'er the city, that groaned in its sleep, 

But it soon fell to visions of rapture and deep; 

For each seed that was dropped, was a flower ere it fell 

And burdened the air with a wonderful spell! 

But just as the Sun smiled with anticipation 

Of zenith aflaming, a glorious station, 

Lo! Vishnu was there; by the long, flaming hair, 

He bound Surya tight in his much-loathed lair; 

Then round the bright eyes cast a black thunder-cloud 

And chained was the brilliant, the boastful, the proud! 

33 



tbe Divine €nc1?antment 

Then back through the gloom, through the heavenly light, 
Sped Vishnu with all of anxiety's flight; 
He entered the portals, and heavenly choirs 
Broke forth with the magic of languishing lyres, 
While over earth's every dale, hilltop and stream 
Hovered darkly the mist of a wonderful dream. 

The Dream. 

Hung the Cosmos over Other's vibrant billow, 
As a sorrow darkly hovers o'er a brain; 
Black as hate that finds the heart a troubled pillow; 
As a minor god's weak curse that fell in vain! 

And the planets, toy-like whirred without a meaning. 
Doomed all futilely their goalless paths to plod; 
Set by idle hands throughout the Vast careening, 
To beguile the puerile moment of a god! 

And upon them the embodied souls of fever, 

Robbed of sameness with the vast Tranquility, 

By the spell of some deific arch-deceiver, 

Who hath cursed them by commanding that they be! 

Who hath snatched from out the slumberous pulsed ocean 
Of Infinitude, a throb, and with a leer, 
Sent it hot through many a sanguine, torturous motion. 
Pleased at that resulting paradox — a tear; 

Hurled it conscious through the veins of pains and terror, 
Through the fierce, plethoric pulse of lust and greed; 
Painted pleasures that should lead it on to error. 
Fashioned punishment to recompense the deed. 

But the dark cloud of the Cosmos like a vision 
Or an angry storm, swept past and all was still; 
Fled diversity and all the gods' derision 
Ceased the feuds of each contending human will! 

34 



tbc Dipinc enchantment 

And the thoughtless pulse forgot its painful being, 
With the dubious errant passions that befell; 
While the gods from out their fashioned heavens fleeing. 
Sank forgotten 'neath Nirvana and its spell! 

********* 
Now the morn was grown old, and Vishnu in the feast 
Had often gazed off to the impatient East; 
And now, springing onto his leaf, sped away 
Toward the wrath-reddened den of the raving, bound Daj'. 
Then he broke the strong chains from the long, flaming 

hair. 
And, fuming with rage, sprang the sua from his lair: 
Then the heavens grew bright, and the stars with a wail 
Shot out of the sky like a crystaline hail: 
And the Moon, dozing still, with her confident glow. 
Melted off in the light like a crescent of snow! 
Then the river leapt on with a tinkling glee 
And the waters dashed high on the startling sea: 
And now as the Day was aflame in the skies 
The whole world awoke with a burst of surprise! 

Long seasons have past, and the lotus is rife 

With oblivious dreams in that age and its life; 

But the weary world since the same dream has dreamed oft, 

While martyrs have died for it, skeptics have scoffed: 

To some 'twas a tale for ridiculous mirth. 

Not fit for the toils and the broils of an earth: 

To some, in despondence and gloom of the night, 

A shimmering, glimmering, unfading light: 

And when from the crown of the mounts would rush down 

The storm, with its teeth and its voice of a hound; 

And the whips of the gale, with the fury of hail, 

Would waken the sprites of the air to a wail; 

They trustingly slept 'till the heavens should smile 

And the lotus-dream guarded them safely the while. 

35 



t])e Dit^iae encbantmetit 



VII. 

DISSOLUTION. 

The time had come, the hoary years were still, 

Another age had rounded to a close; 

Inevitable as ocean blends with rill, 

The law that blows and blights each summer rose, 

Had proven Time as fallible as those; 

Degeneration wove the worlds a shroud; 

Far off, where solar rays in darkness froze, 

Wild Chaos led her jealous hosts of cloud. 

Against the golden worlds, and wailed her wrath aloud! 

The vital Will had burned its being cold; 

Its flame had smouldered into vast disease; 

The Earth's proud pulse throbbed not with magic old, 

And discontent was vocal in her seas: 

Naught could she give her offspring, but the lees 

Of vanished vintage, which did fail to sate 

The universal fever's frenzied pleas: 

And Life, that loved its being so of late, 

Gazed at itself at last, and vanished with hot hate! 

And Kala, crouching in the nether gloom, 
Beholding fear creep o'er each aged world, 
As though it gazed in some colossal tomb, 
His stormy banner, long unswept and furled, 
He cast into the cloud his frenzy whirled; 
Then fondly tested Ajakava's might, 
From which the bolt of death he erst had hurled, 
And raised his pinions, bat-like, clouds of night. 
Long alien to the thrill of swoop in godly flight. 

36 



tl)e Dipinc €nc1)antni<nt 

The silence deep, that weighed upon him long, 

Now found a voice to utter its mad dreams; 

The melancholy of inaction, strong, 

Now like a cloud, when golden Surya gleams 

Across dark fields and gloom-oppressed streams. 

Fell off like sable snow, and loudly broke 

In thunder; and the orbitless stars' beams 

Refused to glow, as fearful of the stroke. 

Then like a whirling storm he thundered more than spoke; 

"Ye boastful orbs that revel in a day 

That by thy glowing vanity is cast; 

Still sweetly dreaming 'tis the quenchless ray, 

Know ye that darkness is thy doom at last; 

No more thou'lt trip along thy orbits fast 

On silver sandals; poppied Night shall sleep 

Upon them with a spell; the haunting Past 

Through space all tenantless, shall wail and weep 

And Kala, lord of lords, shall slumber on the deep." 

Thereat sprang forth like dark waves of the seas. 
With many an imprecation, many a scream, 
Assouras, Nagas, Sarpas, Pisatches, 
Dark as the flight of hate-distempered dream; 
With lurid light their hungry orbs did gleam, 
Their plumeless pinions shrieked in dizzy flight; 
The spirits of the Skull God's words would seem. 
These imps of hate, that in dark doom bedight, 
Unbridled rode the gloom and fury of the Night. 

Behind them strove the consciousness of death 
With wild destruction that the fiends had wrought; 
Too fierce they seemed to be the things of breath. 
But rather darkling and abortive thought, 
Within the Vast a brain where Pain had wrought, 

37 



thi Divine Ettc^antatent 

Harmonious dreams to wild insanity; 
Or from the Anarch's frenzied mind had caught, 
A self-consuming rage; each demon's cry- 
Hung on the swooning air, and moaned but could not die! 

"We mirror our hate in the hollow eye, 

We lurkingly laugh in the last parting sigh; 

We see by dead eyes' light, 

We breathe by the sigh's flight; 

Our blood is past life's blood. 

The murderer's knife's blood. 

Wild, sanguine-souled Strife's blood. 

Our living is death: 

We creep in the brain's thought. 

And fill it with strains, wrought 

Of Madness' hot breath; 

Thus fettered the free soul. 

The skull is our ghee-bowl. 

And Life is a banquet for Death! 

"Then on, we have slumbered 
By darkness encumbered, 
For ages unnumbered, 
Life triumphs the while: 

"The myriad scintillant spheres. 
Vain in the pride of years. 
Jest of their waiting biers 
With silver smile: 

"Over their pompous light 
Sweep we with sable flight. 
Stifle their Day with night, 
Darken their dial." 

38 



tbe Divine Encbantment 

The Void was wrapped in universal storm 

And Death lay gorged, where ruddy Life had stept, 

Whose quivering footprints, charmed and glowing warm, 

Now chilled beneath the strange God's tread and slept; 

And dreaming Brahm among the ruins crept, 

A latent spirit without aim or will; 

The childless Past within the shadows wept; 

Thus Life and Death strove bitterly, until 

Wild Chaos swept the deeps, and satiate, was still. 

So now the doom was wrought; O, smouldering orb. 

Speak from thy glooms, what art thou but a spark? 

My soul at thee once awed, it did absorb 

From thee conceptions of what eyes ne'er mark; 

And it grew humble to thee, and did hark 

To visionary voices of thy will; 

Thou once wert God to me; avaunt! dead spark, 

Thou palest, but my soul by its own will. 

Is overflowed with day, without thee revels still. 

Thou wert my God; for at thy glance, the earth 

Blushed like a maiden in her bridal night. 

And fruitful grew; around its verdant girth, 

Thou spreadest a charm, and wreathed a smile of light; 

Clouds formed and thundered at thy regal sight; 

Thou wert of hope and life and love the nurse; 

Thy frown was famine, and thy absence night; 

Yet that which loved thy smile, and feared thy curse. 

Hurled thee in fuming haste through endless Universe! 

Thus Gods; my soul shall seek no higher will; 
It is a God, its morn, its noon, its gloom; 
It seeks no skies, reveres no sacred hill, 
And hath no shudder at an open tomb; 
A sister-thread in one combining loom; 

39 



Cbe Divine encbsntmcnt 

The throb from pulse that bounds in many veins; 
Not one, but All, the flash within the gloom; 
The same that glows in thunder-cloud that rains, 
That warms this breast, yon sun, and pales the moon that 
wanes! 

The hollow ages sped in silent haste, 

And Ruin lolled, and knew their spell in vain; 

On every hand, the desultory waste 

Darkled, nor dreamed what was would be again: 

Change neither moved nor breathed, lest such were pain; 

Forms, poised in life, thus hung exanimate; 

A fierce forgetting, a divine disdain 

Moulded their features; all dispassionate. 

But Kala and dumb Night who banqueted their hate! 

But when Brahm woke, outstretching his strong arms, 

Oflfcasting sable clouds that wrapped his form; 

He smiled upon the groping Void's alarms. 

And set a sun to pierce the gloom of storm. 

Which searched from out the dusk fierce Kala's form, 

Enthroned on skulls that creaked with dizzy height; 

Beneath him groveled suns that still were warm, 

Since Ajakava's arrow in its flight. 

Had moaned a dismal dirge to all save Death and Night. 



40 



tbc Divine encbantment 



VIII. 

NIRVANA. 

A drowsy spirit floated from the dark, 
Its lips envermeiled with the poppy bloom; 
Dim was its eye with one e'er-dying spark, 
That weakly struggled with somnific gloom: 
Yet naught about the spirit told of tomb, 
For on its cheek the damask came and went; 
Its lips breathed fragrance of immortal bloom; 
Yet each heart-throb and breath of sopor sent, 
Faltered 'twixt languor and indifferent intent. 

"The Gods are sleeping," thus the spirit sighed; 

"The Gods are dreaming," then why wakeful be? 

The seas have slumbered long without a tide, 

And canst thou be more wakeful than the sea? 

The Sun is cold; more watchful thou than he? 

No more high Brahm the tuneful planets hears; 

He floateth on the infinite, calm sea: 

Come, pensive spirits, and forget thy tears; 

Come lie with me, and share the stupor of the spheres. 

"Time foldeth now his pinions, and lies down. 

Weary with conquest of eternity; 

The regal form hath tossed away the crown. 

And thou shalt sleep as peacefully as he: 

And wouldst thou wish to any longer be? 

Why dost thou deem thy feeble victories dear? 

Why curb the conscious flash, or chain the sea 

With sentient steel? Hast thou enchained the tear, 

Or made thy distant hopes glow truer, or more near? 

41 



Zht Divine €nc1)antincnt 

"Where rushed the planets, poppies drowse the while, 

And Night is drunken with their opiate; 

Young, rosy Twilight slumbers with a smile, 

And quite forgets the day is growing late: 

Then wouldst thou linger here disconsolate?" 

Thus crooning music the drowsed spirit kept; 

Its droll words swooned and fell exanimate. 

E'er through their weary syllables they crept; 

And as the spirit ceased, full heavily it slept! 

The meek souls heard the visionary voice. 

They weighed the vanished, and the time to be; 

Too weary they to happily rejoice, 

Poor, weary pilgrims in apostasy; 

Weary of throbbing through the sanguine sea 

Of lustful being: finished was the quest: 

Now dawned on them the great Identity; 

They cast Sansara from them as a jest; 

They saw that all is one; they knew, and fell to rest! 

Calm, awful calm; yet not the calm of death; 
Sleep, heavy sleep; but not the drowse that's cold; 
Calm scarcely stirred with an unconscious breath; 
Sleep, charming Time, lest slumberer grow old: 
Life's pointless tale and tedious, is told: 
The Gods themselves have wearied of their pride: 
Brahm slumbereth, nor dreameth of the mould 
Of realms where He and Vanity might bide: 
And Yama breathes the spell, his sceptre laid aside! 



42 



tbe Divine €ncbantf»ent 



IX. 

DISENCHANTMENT. 

Wrapt In the vision Devanaguy soared, 

And deemed herself a part of all she knew. 

Till glancing toward the spark that had been home, 

The magic vapor of her dream was cleft, 

And through the rift, harsh voices seemed to beat 

In doleful lamentation; curses, groans; 

And there were some who prayed to graven gods 

And some who passed them with a knowing sneer; 

And some did homage to a magic name, 

And improvised a curse for dole of doubt: 

Then all arose, their prayers still on their lips. 

And waged wild wars, that only vexed them more; 

And o'er the slain the slayers fought again. 

True to the magic of a muttered word. 

Till all had fallen, all save one, and he 

Amid the desolation, wept with doubt! 

Then with a mighty impulse, cried she out, 

"God is about thee, see thou slay est It; 

It glows in thee, then look not to the skies:" 

And as she spoke it seemed the mortal words 

Weighed down the mystic balance of her mind; 

So broke her dream; for thrice three moons had waned! 

She saw great Surya with his baleful eyes. 

And crown of flame, slip 'neath the girding dusk, 

And Indra's countless tapers glow aloft! 

Then grew a rapture at the virgin's heart, 
And through her flashed a deep, ecstatic bliss 

43 



tbe Dipine enchantment 

Beyond the glory of conception's thrill; 
So while her pulse beat music in her brain, 
The infant Christna dawned upon the world! 

And as she sat and mused, gazing the while 
Into the clear, deep eyes, that seemed to her. 
The mirrors of the mighty world, she spoke 
Half to herself and half unto the child, 
Who deemed it some sweet music, and was glad: 
"And wilt thou be as others, Jeseus, 
Who wassail upon sunbeams for an hour. 
Then quaff the potent mystery of dusk? 
And shalt thou feel the fever of their lusts, 
To wither with them? O, my Lotus Flower, 
My heart would grow a bulbul with a song, 
Wouldst thou but be a comfort to their griefs; 
A sun upon their night; thy life a song, 
To charm the way of him who is at best, 
A fevered, nescient traveler toward naught. 

He says, "Behold the world, and me its king!" 
Yet dreams not that some broader .being buds. 
And bursts around him, and he knows it not: 
'Twixt taste and touch, sight, sound and scent, 
A broader day than ever lit the East, 
A fuller life than rushes in his veins, 
A greater bliss than his crude sense can grasp, 
And nights and noons, and worlds and latent suns, 
Whose finitude bounds his infinity! 

Brahm is a puppet; yet within I feel 

A Something faultless; is it thee, O Source? 

O earless Vast, art thou my maker's couch? 

Whate'er, where'er, whence-e'er, howe'er, I hymn 
Thy vast and wonderful completeness, OM! 

L.oFC. "" 



Cbe Diviitc €ncbantntent 



X. 

POSTLUDE. 

O, Spirit vast as ^ther, hear me pray; 

Wake from thy musing o'er the flower thou thrillest; 

Smooth out thy frown in yonder thunder-cloud; 

Forget thy smiling at the evening's brim, 

And hear me, hear thy child. 

I'd say, O Brahma, but destroyer thou; 

Or Vishnu, but the flower wilts for thee; 

Or Siva, but thou feedest man and flowers; 

Come from thy couch of downy ^Ether waves, 

Come from thy dwelling in the burning suns. 

Creep through me with the songs thou canst but sing. 

Not ^ther. Earth nor Heaven, but all three. 

Breathe o'er me, and my burning desert soul 

Shall well with countless springs, and my warm heart 

Shall be oasis in a waste of bloom. 

If thou are Siva, spare; if Vishnu, bless; 

If Brahma, recreate; we know thou art 

The Eye of eye, unseeing and unseen; 

The Ear of ear, unhearing and unheard; 

The Thought of thought, unthinking, hid from thought. 

Thou art, and art not to each votary; 

Reviled and worshiped at earth's every shrine! 

Thou art the dusk of Night, the light of Day, 

The Morning's spirit, yet the Sunset's soul. 

Thou thrillest woman's breast with ecstacy 

And lo ! she breathes with wondrous double life. 

Thou dreamest in the cells of sage's mind. 

And thoughts, immortal, spring like winged gods. 

45 



tbc Dit'inc enchantmcttt 



Whate'er they call thee in a foreign land, 
Whate'er we name thee in this land of flowers, 
Thou art the same dumb worker of all good, 
(And evil, which is undeveloped good); 
Yes, thou art dumb, thou hearest not my voice; 
Night darkens, though I pray howe'er for light; 
Morn wakens, though I clutch at fleeting gloom; 
So I shall weep with Sorrow, it shall come; 
And I shall laugh with Pleasure, it shall be; 
Yea, fearless go to Death, for it is best; 
This pulse I love so, is not mine to hoard 
And limit to a putrid cell of flesh; 
It is a part of thee. Great Infinite; 
'Tis mine, 'tis yonder trees' and yonder weeds'; 
It blossoms in yon banyan, and yon bird 
Is thrilled by it into a vital song. 

O Nameless Essence, vast as ^ther is. 
And strangely, endless as the circled years, 
As thou art deaf, I can not worship thee, 
But my soul glows in child-like admiration: 
AH is well. 

END. 



46 



To.T^ 0.^. IPOP 



